Jeff was wearing faded blue denim trousers and a white collarless T shirt with short sleeves. In the flickering shadow of the foliage above them, his skin looked mahogany against the white of his shirt. His arms were smooth but muscular, and when he plucked at the grass, Lucy noticed how the tendons moved delicately under the dark skin above his wrists. He was barefooted and his feet were squarish and much lighter in color than the rest of him and somehow they seemed to Lucy to be childishly vulnerable. Somewhere along the line, Lucy thought, I’ve forgotten what young men look like.
Jeff was squinting at a leaf in his hand. “All my life,” he said, “I’ve been on the hunt and I haven’t found one yet.”
“Found what yet?” Lucy asked.
“A four-leaf clover.” He tossed the leaf aside. “Do you think it’s significant?”
“Profoundly,” Lucy said.
“That’s what I think, too,” said Jeff. He sat down in a neat, economical, folding movement, holding his knees.
The narrow, flexible waists of young men, Lucy thought. She shook her head and picked up her book and stared at the page. “Everything turned out badly,” she read. “There were mosquitoes at Arles and when they got to Carcassone they discovered the water was turned off for the afternoon.”
“I want to know the conditions,” Jeff said.
“I’m reading,” said Lucy.
“Why’ve you avoided me for the last three days?” Jeff asked.
“I can’t wait to see how this book comes out,” said Lucy. “They are rich and young and beautiful and they travel all over Europe and their marriage is going on the rocks.”
“I asked you a question.”
“Have you ever been to Arles?” Lucy said.
“No,” said Jeff. “I haven’t been anywhere. Do you want to go to Arles with me?”
Lucy turned the page. “That’s why I’ve been avoiding you for three days,” she said. “If you keep saying things like that, I really think it might be better if you leave.” But even as she said it she knew she was thinking, Isn’t this pleasant, sitting here under a tree, listening to a young man talking foolishly like that, Do you want to go to Arles with me?
“I’m going to tell you something about yourself,” Jeff said.
“I’m trying to read,” Lucy said. “Don’t be rude.”
“You are letting yourself be wiped out,” Jeff said.
“What?” Lucy put down her book, surprised.
“By your husband,” he said. He stood up and talked down at her. “He’s got you locked in, stowed down, vaulted, stifled …”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucy said, all the more vehemently because from time to time she had said almost the same thing to Oliver in practically the same words. “You hardly even know him.”
“I know him, I know him,” Jeff said. “And if I didn’t know him, I’d know the type. My father has ten like him for friends and they’ve been in and out of my house since I was born. The holy, superior, soft-voiced, all-knowing, Ivy-League owners of the earth.”
“You haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Lucy said.
“Don’t I, though?” Jeff began to stride restlessly back and forth in front of her. “I watched you all last August. I sat behind you in the movie house, I hung around the soda fountain when you came for ice cream. I pretended to be buying a magazine in the bookshop when you came into the circulating library. I rowed past here three times a day. I had my eye on you, I had my eye on you,” he chanted wildly. “Why do you think I came back here this summer?”
“Sssh,” Lucy said. “You’re making too much noise.”
“Nothing escaped me,” Jeff said melodramatically. “Nothing. Didn’t you even notice me?”
“No,” Lucy said.
“You see!” Jeff said loudly, as though he’d scored a point. “He’s put blinkers on you! Blinded you! You don’t even see anything except through those cold, filing-cabinet eyes.”
“Well, now,” Lucy said reasonably, hoping to calm Jeff down, “I don’t think it’s so unusual for a married woman of my age not to notice nineteen-year-old boys in drugstores.”
“Don’t call me a nineteen-year-old boy,” Jeff shouted in anguish. “And don’t call yourself a married woman of your age.”
“You are the most difficult boy,” Lucy said. She picked up her book again. “Now I’m going to read,” she said firmly.
“Go ahead and read.” Jeff crossed his arms and glared down at her. “I don’t care whether you hear what I have to say or not. But I’m going to say it anyhow. I watched you because I thought you were the most magnificent woman I had ever seen in my whole life …”
“After Carcassone,” Lucy read aloud, her voice clear and melodious, “they were stopped by floods and they decided that Spain would probably be boring anyway, so they turned north in the direction of …”
With a choked sound, Jeff leaned over and grabbed the book. Then he threw it, with all his strength, far out across the lawn.
“All right.” Lucy stood up. “That’s enough. It’s one thing to be an irresponsible and amusing boy. It’s quite another to be an insulting and overconfident boor … Now, please leave.”
Jeff faced her, his lips tight. “Forgive me,” he said huskily. “I’m not overconfident. I’m the least overconfident man in the world. I keep remembering what it was like to kiss you and I …”
“You must forget that completely,” said Lucy crisply. “I let you kiss me because you begged like a puppy and it was like kissing a nephew good night.” Even as she said it she was pleased with herself for the intelligent way she was handling him.
“Don’t lie,” he whispered. “Whatever else you do, don’t lie.”
“I asked you to leave,” Lucy said.
Jeff glared at her. Anybody watching us, Lucy thought, would be certain that he had just finished telling me he hated me. Suddenly he turned, and strode, bare-footed and straight-backed, over to where he had thrown the book. He picked it up and smoothed out a crumpled page and walked slowly back to her, under the tree.
“I return the book,” he said, giving it to her. “I admit I am a fool. I admit everything.” He grinned at her tentatively. “I even admit I was nineteen years old last summer. I don’t remember anything you don’t want me to remember. I don’t remember that I ever said that you were a magnificent woman and I don’t remember that I ever did anything but praise Oliver Crown as a paragon among men. And above all, I don’t remember that I ever kissed you. I am abject in the most Eastern, Oriental, abject way and I promise to remain abject from this date until Labor Day.”
He waited for her to smile, but she didn’t smile. She found her place again in the book.
“I am as humble as the worm,” Jeff said, watching her closely, “I am as respectful as a millionaire’s butler, I am as sexless as a seventy-year-old eunuch in a home for aged Turks … There,” he said triumphantly. “You laughed.”
“All right,” Lucy said, seating herself again. “You can stay. On one condition.”
“What condition?” He looked down at her suspiciously.
“You must promise not to be serious.”